A Screaming Man
About the highest tribute I can pay to Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, whose “A Screaming Man” opens tomorrow at the Film Forum in New York, is that I regard him as the finest director coming out of Africa...
View ArticleViva Riva!
Opening on Friday at theaters in NY (Angelika), LA (Nuart), and Portland (Cinema 21), “Viva Riva!” appealed to me just on face value alone. Filmed in Kinshasa, this marks the debut of...
View ArticleTinariwen
This is a Tuareg group from Mali that has a new CD coming out. One of their members was in Qaddafi’s army. An article on Tuareg mercenaries in Libya appears on the Atlantic Monthly website. I can’t...
View ArticleThe Sons of Tennessee Williams; Elevate
Although the adjective “inspirational” is one of the most hackneyed in the film reviewer’s vocabulary and hence one that I tend to shirk, I could think of no other word that better describes two new...
View ArticleIkland
Watch Trailer here When documentary filmmaker Cevin Soling was in seventh grade, his social studies teacher passed out a copy of an essay by Lewis Thomas titled “The Iks“. It referred to a small tribe...
View ArticleSenegalese portraits in cinema
Last Saturday a Facebook friend asked me for my opinions on an article in the December 28, 2012 CP-Africa: Most African countries could be middle income countries by 2025 By Shanta Devarajan and...
View ArticleSo what the fuck was Humphrey Bogart doing in North Africa anyhow?
Back in the late 50s the only way you could see a movie on television was to turn on the CBS network. With the Early Show, the Late Show, and the Late Late Show, you got to see just the kinds of films...
View ArticleYou Don’t Need Feet to Dance; Benda Bilili
A new film opening day in New York and one that opened last year focus on African musicians who overcome disabilities—polio in particular—to make a life for themselves. They succeed both as inspiring...
View ArticleLeftist support for BRICS: a faith-based initiative
One of the odder items to show up on my radar screen recently was the eThekwini Declaration on BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Development, Integration and Industrialisation adopted at a conference...
View ArticleGod Loves Uganda; Cooper & Hemingway: the True Gen
I’m as willing as any other socialist to declare myself okay with religion, especially when it comes to liberation theology. Also, I do understand that when Marx likened religion to opium, he did not...
View ArticleBehind the Blue Veil; Following the Ninth
Woe betides a people unfortunate enough to have been excluded from statehood as colonialism drew its final breath. The Palestinians and the Kurds come immediately to mind but so do the Tuaregs who...
View ArticleThoughts triggered by the passing of Nelson Mandela
In December of 1987 I traveled to southern Africa with a small Tecnica delegation to meet with the African National Congress then still in exile over the feasibility of extending our Nicaragua...
View ArticleScreening Slavery
We need more films like “Quilombo”–about slave revolts rather than slavery. Counterpunch Weekend Edition December 20-22, 2013 Screening Slavery by LOUIS PROYECT In a podcast discussion between veteran...
View ArticleObiang’s enablers
President Barack Obama, President Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea, and their First Ladies From Wikipedia: Controversy In July 2003, state-operated radio declared Obiang “the country’s god” and had...
View ArticleSembène and the Spirit of Rebellion
COUNTERPUNCH WEEKEND EDITION OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 1, 2015 by LOUIS PROYECT I became a socialist in the 1960s largely on the belief that capitalism held back civilization by preventing a large majority...
View ArticleDemocracy, Mugabe-Style
COUNTERPUNCH WEEKEND EDITION NOVEMBER 13-15, 2015 Democracy, Mugabe-Style Beginning on Wednesday November 18th, the Film Forum in New York will be showing “Democrats”, a cinéma vérité documentary...
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